Like the global temperature, the phenomenon is on an upswing. In May, a New Yorker science blogger mused on the benefits of employing a "comedic frame" in climate coverage. A couple weeks later, the Guardiancollected climate-comedy highpoints, from The Onion to "Ali G." The newest item on the list came from a May bit from an exasperated John Oliver on the media habit of "balancing" the climate consensus with fringe skeptics.

The biggest sign the genre is maturing hums with neon. Today, Chicago's Heartland Institute, the kings of unintentional climate-comedy, will hit the Vegas strip with a three-day show at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, featuring a chorus line's worth of hilarious climate rejectionists. The line-up will collectively perform the energy-policy equivalent of a Henny Youngman routine: "Take my planet capable of supporting civilization. Please!"

The think tank that flacked for Big Tobacco against the science of lung cancer will perform off the same playbook to flack for Big Carbon against the science of greenhouse gases. Tickets to see these self-styled climate researchers and political operatives -- almost none of whom are climate or earth systems scientists and nearly all of them funded at one- or two-degrees remove by oil and coal interests -- run $129, including meals.

On the Strip, Heartland speakers will pretend to be qualified to dissent from the equivalent to the National Academy of Sciences of every industrial country. Against the faint ring of slot machines, they'll dismiss the stark warnings of experts from 130 countries who contribute to the authoritative assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Because the first rule of improv comedy is "Yes, and...", some Heartland speakers will concede that, yes, man-made warming is occurring. The kicker comes when they echo Heartland's April report concluding that this is a net positive for all carbon-based life forms. With this pivot toward "Yes, and...", Heartland is ensuring they'll continue to have topical comedy fodder for years to come, even after their carbon denial becomes as outdated as their lung cancer material.

Heartland's Vegas appearance also suggests a strategy to avoid repeating the troupe's 2012 funding crisis. Instead of depending on corporate contributions, Heartland could find steady revenue as a regular sell-out act on the Strip. They aren't in a position to challenge Carrot Top for a headlining residency at the MGM Grand, but in a city whose economic base is expected to suffer devastating effects from climate change, there is a role for a group with years' worth of climate change gags, including slide shows and props. Heartland policy advisor Norman Rodgers, for example, would kill audiences with classic one-liners such as, "The few examples of coal or oil companies actually giving money to dissenters or dissenting organizations are so minor that one suspects that the gift was an accident or bureaucratic snafu." James Taylor would have them rolling with lines like, "I successfully completed Ivy League atmospheric science courses, so I'm a scientist by training."

If Don Rickles can make a Vegas career as the "Merchant of Venom," the folks at Heartland can make a run as the "Merchants of Doubt." The timing could not be better. Nevada's nearly 50 golf courses will likely soon be wilting under heat waves and water shortages, and the dwindling number of tourists visiting Vegas will want more air-conditioned entertainment. To draw these crowds, Heartland just needs to punch-up its clunky ad copy, which now reads, "Come to fabulous Las Vegas to meet leading scientists from around the world who question whether 'man-made global warming' will be harmful to plants, animals, or human welfare." A permanent show needs something that sparkles, like the tagline for the Cirque Du Soleil show "O: An aquatic masterpiece of surrealism and theatrical romance."

Heartland's might read, "Take the Money and Run: A planet-crushing masterpiece of delusion and breathtaking corruption."

There are other benefits to turning Heartland events into entertainment spectacles worthy of a Vegas marquee. Real scientists would no longer have to "tie up all our time fighting denialist propaganda," as astronomer Phil Plait put it. Instead, they could relegate Heartland coverage to the entertainment critics at Variety and Las Vegas Magazine. Heartland is a good bet to open to rave local reviews. They already have friends at the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Heartland is also getting into the movie side of show business. Its main co-sponsor in Vegas this week is the concurrent libertarian event, FreedomFest, held at Planet Hollywood. On Wednesday night, Heartland ticket-holders are invited to attend the debut the film, Atlas Shrugged 3: Where is John Galt? Fox Business host and popular climate comedian John Stossel will introduce the screening and broadcast his show from the FreedomFest floor.

Climate Expertise: Bastardi has published no articles in peer-reviewed journals on any subject. His views are sharply at odds with those of working scientists in the field. Multiple climate scientists have stated that his claims are "completely wrong," scientifically incorrect," and "nonsense."

He Said It: On Fox News in 2011, Bastardi claimed that the theory of human-induced climate change "contradicts what we call the first law of thermodynamics. Energy can be neither created nor destroyed. So to look for input of energy into the atmosphere, you have to come from a foreign source."

Dana Rohrabacher

Day Job: Republican Congressman from California, sits on House Science Committee.

Patrick Moore

Day Job: Canadian public relations specialist; Chair of the Nuclear Energy Institute and founder of Greenspirit Strategies; frequently described as "co-founder of Greenpeace" (Greenpeace has released a statement putting this in context.)

Fox News Guest: Regular appearances and frequently cited. When he told lawmakers there is no evidence man is contributing to climate change, Fox wrote about it. Many of his statements have been picked up on various Fox segments where they use his "cofounder of Greenpeace" title. In a February segment on The Real Story With Gretchen Carlson, Carlson touted "a stunning admission about climate change" from "the co-founder of Greenpeace, who says there is no scientific proof that man is contributing to climate change."

Climate Expertise: None

He Said It: "Weather is just weather, like the cold weather we're getting this year. It has not warmed for the last 17 years. We know that for sure. And that brings into question the whole hypothesis."

John Coleman

Fox News guest: Fox picked up his 2009 article "scolding" Al Gore and have referenced him on multiple programs, including The Five and The O'Reilly Factor.

Climate Expertise: According to theColumbia Journalism Review, "Coleman had spent half a century in the trenches of TV weathercasting... But his work was more a highly technical art than a science. His degree, received fifty years earlier at the University of Illinois, was in journalism."

He said it: "I assert that warm[ing] is good for human health and that global warming, even the most extreme estimates, will not create heat illness or death increase..."

Dr. William Kininmonth

Day Job: Retired Australian meteorologist, runs the Australasian Climate Research Institute, which is based out of Kininmonth's home.

Industry Ties:Multiple: Business Council of Australia, Heartland Institute, Fraser Institute, International Climate Science Coalition, Science and Public Policy Institute.

Climate Expertise: He has no published peer-reviewed research on climate change, aside from Energy & Environment, a journal designed to house the pseudo-academic work of climate skeptics. He said it: "Alarmism over climate is of great benefit to many, providing government funding for academic research and a reason for government bureaucracies to grow."

He said it: "As long as they continue to call people like me 'deniers', I will call them 'global warming Nazis.'"

James L. Johnston

Day Job: Senior Fellow for Energy and Regulatory Policy, The Heartland Institute

Industry Ties: In 1993, he retired as senior economist for Amoco, an oil company, after working there for nearly two decades. Also worked at the RAND corporation, Institute for Defense Analyses, and the Secretary's Office of the U.S. Treasury.

Climate Expertise: None

He said it: "For a firm facing such dangers from government-funded designs for reducing greenhouse gases, it would be prudent to support financial analysts and free-market institutions not committed to government solutions."

David Kreutzer

Day Job: Research Fellow in Energy Economics and Climate Change at The Heritage Foundation

Industry Ties: Kreutzer worked as an economist at Berman and Company, a Washington-based public affairs firm, prior to coming on board in 2008 at Heritage. For James Madison University's International Business Program, he also taught economics.

Kenneth Haapala

He said it: "Carbon dioxide is a necessary food for green plants, thus necessary for life on this planet as we generally recognize it."

Norman Rogers

Day Job: A "volunteer" advisor to The Heartland Institute. He runs his own website where he writes about his study of global warming as a "retirement project."

Industry Ties: The Heartland Institute

Climate Expertise: None

He said it: "The few examples of coal or oil companies actually giving money to dissenters or dissenting organizations are so minor that one suspects that the gift was an accident or bureaucratic snafu."

Tom Harris

Industry Ties: Director of Operations of the High Park Group, a lobbying organization for the energy industry until 2006. This has apparently been deleted from their website.

Climate Expertise: None

He said it: "All the companies want is to see information coming out about research that supports their side. They wouldn't have to if all sides were covered (by the media).... If we got to half a million (dollars), I'd be thrilled."

Walter Cunningham

Industry Ties: Has served as the director of a number of public and private companies, including those in the venture capital, real estate, offshore pipeline and consulting engineering industries. Exxon Mobil-affiliated Tech Central Station lists him as a roundtable member. Exxon also gave this group $95,000 in contributions since 1998 for "Climate Change Support."

Fox News guest: Has appeared on Fox talking about how NASA puts "politics over science".

Climate Expertise: None

He said it: "After years of looking, I have not found one piece of empirical evidence that man-made CO2 has a significant impact on global climate."

Craig Idso

Day Job: Founder of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change which has the mission to "separate reality from rhetoric in the emotionally-charged debate that swirls around the subject of carbon dioxide and global change."

Industry Ties: Heartland, Peabody Energy, and the Science and Public Policy Institute.

Climate Expertise: Many of Soon's articles are not published in peer-reviewed journals, but by organizations skeptical of climate change such as the Fraser Institute (here and here), The George C. Marshall Institute (here), and in the skeptical science journal Energy & Environment (here). One paper that Soon authored and was published in two peer-reviewed journals received research funding from the oil lobbying group, American Petroleum Institute.

He said it: "I don't like to claim that I am an expert on anything, but I have enough knowledge about climate science and climate system to be able to write scientific papers and go to meetings and talk about monsoon systems and talk about any other things that you want to discuss about climate science issues. I'm as qualified as anybody that you know on this planet on this topic."

Dr. S. Fred Singer

Day Job: President of the Science and Environmental Policy Project

Industry Ties: The Cato Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Heritage Foundation, Heartland Institute and others. According to SourceWatch, Singer has also done consulting work for major oil companies including Texaco, Arco, Shell, Sun, Unocal, the Electric Power Institute, Florida Power and the American Gas Association. Has previously worked for the tobacco industry to debunk the "junk science" linking their products to cancer.

Robert M. Carter

Day Job: Science Policy Advisor at Australia's Institute of Public Affairs, which has received funding from oil companies and whose directors sit on the boards of companies in the fossil fuel sector. He's also an "expert" at the Heartland Institute and Chief Science Advisor to the International Climate Science Coalition.

Industry Ties: See above.

Climate Expertise: A geologist by training, Carter wrote a book titled, Climate: The Counter-Consensus.

He said it: As paraphrased by the Sydney Morning Herald: "The role of peer review in scientific literature is overstressed, and whether or not a scientist had been funded by the fossil fuel industry [i]s irrelevant to the validity of research."

Ron Arnold

Day Job: Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise (CDFE); writes a column for the Washington Examiner.

Climate Expertise: None, although she describes herself as an " 'expert' on the science and politics of global warming since the late 1980s."

She said it: "To count as science, such knowledge seeking should not have ulterior motives such as growing rich and powerful, for that would lead to bias and selection. I found my niche where nature meets culture, in environmental politics and policy."

Larry Bell

Day Job: Professor of Architecture at the University of Houston, blogger at Forbes.com

He said it: "Pointing the finger at carbon dioxide as the culprit is a convenient way, of course, of vilifying carbon based fuels."

Leighton Steward

Day Job: President and Chairman of Plants Need CO2, a group founded in 2009 with the mission "to educate the public on the positive effects of additional atmospheric CO2 and help prevent the inadvertent negative impact to human, plant and animal life if we reduce CO2."

Industry Ties: He was Vice Chairman of the American oil and gas company Burlington Resources, Inc. until his retirement in 2000. DeSmogBlog reported that: "According to his profile at EOG Resources (formerly Enron Oil and Gas Company) where he is a director, Steward has extensive experience in the oil and gas exploration and production industry and has also worked with The Louisiana Land and Exploration Company as President, Chief Operating Officer and, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer from 1989 until its acquisition by Burlington Resources Inc. in 1997." He is also an "Honorary Director" at the American Petroleum Institute.

Harold (Hal) Doiron

He said it: "The physics, chemical, biological and heat transfer processes involved in Climate Change modeling and analysis are similar to large, complex systems familiar to Aerospace Engineers."

Dr. Patrick Michaels

Day Job: Director of the Center for the Study of Science at the Cato Institute and has taught environmental sciences professor at the University of Virginia

Industry Ties: Expert and visiting scientist at the George C. Marshall Institute, expert and senior fellow at Cato Institute, policy expert at the Heritage Foundation. Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, Tech Central Station, and more In an interview with Fareed Zakaria in 2010, he estimated that 40 percent of his work is funded by the petroleum industry.

Climate Expertise: Michaels has published research papers in peer-reviewed climate journals. According to DeSmogBlog, "Some of Michaels's papers were published in the journal Climate Research around the time that climate skeptic Chris de Freitas was serving as one of the journal's editors. Half of the journal's editors resigned over poor quality control in mid-2003. Additionally, he has published some of his papers in the journal Energy and Environment, run by fellow skeptic Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen."

He said it: "By the year 2000, plus or minus a few, the vogue environmental calamity will be an ice age. And this nouvelle apocalypse, revised version, will predict that global warming will cause sea level to fall."

Hon. George Christensen

He said it: "It seems to me that before we go down the track of removing people's property rights or introducing carbon taxes in the name of stopping man-made climate change, we should really work out what the facts are. That is why I believe it is high time we had a Royal Commission to determine the scientific facts on the theory of man-made climate change."

Jay Lehr

Day Job: Science director at The Heartland Institute and lecturer.

Industry Ties: Outside of his work for the Heartland Institute, Jay Lehr's current client list includes biotech giant Monsanto and Dow AgroSciences Canada, a division of Dow Chemical.

He said it: "A warmer world is a better world. Look at weather-related death rates in winter and in summer, and the case is overwhelming that warmer is better."

Steve Goreham

Day Job: Author, The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism; executive director of the Climate Science Coalition of America.

Industry Ties: Prior to the page being apparently hacked, "Goreham's profile on Climatism.netdescribes him as an engineer and business executive with extensive experience at Fortune 100 public companies and private firms," DeSmogBlog reported.

He said it: "I'm just a layperson ... I'm also a relative newcomer to the climate battle."

Marita Noon

Day Job: Executive director for both Energy Makes America Great Inc. and the Citizens' Alliance for Responsible Energy (CARE), a lobby group funded by New Mexico oil and gas industry interests. Prior to her work in energy, she worked as a motivational speaker and author.

Industry Ties: See above.

Climate Expertise: None

She said it: "America is poised to become the "no pee" section of the global swimming pool."

Craig Rucker

Day Job: Director for Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, or CFACT, a fossil fuel-funded group.

Industry Ties: According to Greenpeace's report, Dealing In Doubt, CFACT has received over $4.1 million in funds from Donor's Trust and Donor's Capital Fund between 2002-2011, and additional $582,000 from ExxonMobil between 1998-2012.

Marc Morano

Industry Ties: CFACT's 2011 financial disclosure form lists Morano as the highest paid member of its staff, each year receiving a $150,000 salary. Former employee of the Media Research Center, which has received more than $400,000 from ExxonMobil.

Joseph D'Aleo

Climate Expertise: None. Co-published one article on global cooling in the non-peer review journal Energy & Environment which only 25 libraries around the world carry.

He said it: "Warming not 'global'. It is shown in satellite data to be northern hemisphere only... Warming (global mean and northern hemisphere) stopped in the 1990s."

Fred Goldberg

Day Job: Swedish Royal Institute of Technology (adjunct, but RIT has stated that he is "not currently employed.")

Industry Ties: Heartland

Climate Expertise: None, despite Goldberg being a signatory on an open letter to United Nation's Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that said stopping climate change is impossible, calling it "a natural phenomenon that has affected humanity through the ages."

He said it: "It is, of course, the Sun that drives everything, and clouds are making problems for the Sun."

E. Calvin Beisner

Day Job: Spokesman for the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation and speaker on the application of the Biblical worldview to economics, government, and environmental policy. Known as a "leading evangelical climate-change skeptic."

He said it: From Beisner's "Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming": "We believe Earth and its ecosystems--created by God's intelligent design and infinite power and sustained by His faithful providence --are robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting, admirably suited for human flourishing, and displaying His glory. Earth's climate system is no exception. Recent global warming is one of many natural cycles of warming and cooling in geologic history."

Dr. Craig Loehle

Day Job:Scientist for the paper industry's National Council for Air and Stream Improvement

He said it: "We felt that if you concede the science is settled and that there's a consensus, you cannot-- the moral high ground has been ceded to the alarmists."

Madhav Khandekar

Day Job: Meteorologist, Environment Canada (retired)

Industry Ties: An "expert" at Heartland, a member of International Climate Science Coalition

Climate Expertise: "According to a search of 22,000 academic journals, Khandekar has published 19 pieces of research in peer-reviewed journals, mainly in the area of El Nino and climate. Many of his papers on climate change were published in the journal Energy and Environment, a journal which has been criticized for its peer review process and which is edited by global warming skeptic Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen," DeSmogBlog reported.

He said it: "I don't see that CO2 is inducing any climate change. CO2 may have induced a small amount of warming that we saw in the 80's and 90's but more importantly CO2 is an inert gas, it is not a pollutant."

Barry Brill

Day Job: New Zealand-based lawyer and the former Minister of Science & Technology and Minister of Energy. He is currently chairman of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition.

Industry Ties: Has served as chairman or director at Power New Zealand Ltd., Electricity Supply Association of NZ, Business New Zealand, Pacific Energy Corp, Petrocorp Exploration, and more fossil fuel companies.

Dr. Jennifer Marohasy

Day Job: Adjunct research fellow in the Centre for Plant and Water Science at Central Queensland University and former senior fellow at the conservative Australian think tank, the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), and a director of the Australian Environment Foundation.

Climate Expertise: None

She said it: From her official bio: "Jennifer Marohasy is an Australian biologist and libertarian who holds unpopular opinions on a range of important environmental issues."

Dr. Nils-Axel Mörner

Day Job: Stockholm University (retired)

Climate Expertise: He appears to have written no peer-reviewed journal articles.

He said it: Mörner claims to have paranormal abilities to find land-bound water using only a dowsing rod and the power of his imagination. Also, writing in the Guardian, George Monbiot relates: "In 2007, Mörner and his collaborator, a homeopath and amateur archaeologist called Bob Lind, were reprimanded by the Scania County archaeologist in Sweden for damaging an Iron Age cemetery during their quest to demonstrate the 'Bronze Age calendar alignments,' which would somehow help to show that this local graveyard was in fact an ancient Hellenic trading centre."

Dr. Stanley Goldenberg

Day Job:Meteorologist for the Hurricane Research Division, Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory/National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration.

Richard Keen

Climate Expertise: Has published a few climate-related articles in peer-reviewed journals. According to Keen, he has experience as a military meteorologist and has "done some climate modeling but when I was younger and less wise."

He said it: From his presentation at the ICCC7: "The Warmers 'jimmy' the data to make it agree with the models and look like it is warming."

Russell Cook

Day Job: Blogger and Contributing Editor, Environment & Climate News; writes regularly about the "smear of skeptic scientists" for Breitbart.com and RedState.

Dr. Don Easterbrook

Climate Expertise: Has published climate-related articles in peer-review journals

He said it: "Global warming is over -- at least for a few decades. However, the bad news is that global cooling is even more harmful to humans than global warming, and a cause for even greater concern."

Fox News guest: No, but Garofalo made headlines this March when he tweeted, "Let's be honest, 70% of teams in NBA could fold tomorrow + nobody would notice a difference w/ possible exception of increase in streetcrime."

Climate Expertise: "While I am not a scientist, and write primarily on economics, tax policy and budget issues, I have been fascinated over the years by Heartland's work on climate change."

He said it: See above.

Terrence Flower

Day Job: Emeritus professor of mathematics and physics at St. Catherine University

Industry Ties: Heartland Institute; CFACT

Climate Expertise: Has a background in infared astrophysics

He said it: "There is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the earth." -- From the Global Warming Petition Project, of which Flower is a signee

Tony Heller (AKA Steve Goddard)

Day Job: Blogger in Fort Collins, Colo., under name "Steve Goddard"

Industry Ties: Claims that he can't get any: "I have tried to obtain funding, but skeptics with money are terrified of political attacks directed by the White House and/or being targeted by the IRS."

Fox News Guest:Cited onFox & Friends as proof the U.S. has been cooling since the 1930s.

Climate Expertise: Zero. He has a bachelor's degree in geology from Arizona State University, and a master's degree in electrical engineering from Rice University, but he's "spent much of the past seven years studying the history of extreme weather, as well as the history and methodology behind the reported NOAA/NASA temperature record."

He said it: "My name is Tony Heller. I am a whistle blower. ... If you want to learn more about climate history, I have assembled a large collection of old newspaper articles about the weather below 350 PPM CO2. If you read through this, you will understand that lowering CO2 will not make the weather any better, or worse.'"

Tiffany Roberts

Day Job: Consultant for Republicans in the California state Senate.

Climate Expertise: None. Her background is in economics.

She said it:Once praised cap-and-trade by telling the Scientific American, "If I'm under the cap, I make more and more money. If I'm above the cap, I'm paying more and more money... [Companies] are actually able to profit from that good behavior."